by Jay Brenham
The group fanned out around Franklin in a semi circle, King Leonidas squared off across from, holding his head high and his shoulders square. There was a stark contrast between Franklin and the group’s leader. Whereas Franklin was pudgy and had the outward appearance of a man who’d spent the majority of his life in a cubicle, the other infected man had muscle and power. Franklin was a lap dog; Leonidas was a pit bull.
Leonidas took a menacing step toward Franklin, his arms held slightly apart from his body, motioning for Franklin to join the group. Sam expected Franklin to back down, to take his place among the others—he would’ve, he thought——but the virus had changed Franklin’s formerly mild-mannered ways. Instead of retreating, Franklin moved forward, lips curled and nostrils flared. At the sight of such an obvious challenge, the other members of the group began hooting and screaming wordlessly, like an assembly of apes.
“Do you think we could slip out the back?” Matt asked.
Sam shook his head and pointed to where the group, had ranged in front of and to the sides of the house. “Some of those standing to the side of the house can see the doors. There’s probably, what, a hundred? I don’t like those odds.”
Leonidas produced a hunting knife, the kind used for skinning game. He clutched the handle in his right hand, his eyes fixed on Franklin.
Franklin stood ten yards away, unwavering. He’d been holding the rifle loosely in one hand but now he switched his grip, holding it by the barrel with both hands, like a baseball bat.
A staccato of whooping and calling went up from the infected entourage. Franklin and Leonidas were still, seemingly oblivious to the roar. They were calm, each confident in his own eventual victory. Sam had never seen the infected fight each other, but he guessed this wasn’t going to be a schoolyard brawl. One of these men was going to die.
Leonidas made the first move, charging Franklin. Franklin sprang forward with astonishing speed, dodging to the left as Leonidas swung the knife. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and Leonidas’ knife opened a long gash from Franklin’s chest to his hip. It wasn’t a deep wound, but it was still serious enough that it could be seen from the second story of the house.
Franklin moved left again, bringing the metal-reinforced stock of the rifle around in an arching motion until it collided with Leonidas’ chin. Leonidas stumbled a few feet under the force of the blow but turned to face Franklin just in time to catch the butt of the weapon again, this time between the eyes. An eruption of cherry-colored fluid exploded from his face as his nose split. Leonidas swiped at his bloodied eyes with the back of his hand. The blow must’ve been damaging enough to impair his vision, because he thrashed wildly, thrusting the knife into the empty air around him. A stray swipe of the knife sliced Franklin’s cheek straight through, but his other attacks missed. Leonidas still exuded confidence, but anyone could see that the tide of the battle had abruptly turned.
Franklin easily eluded Leonidas’ other thrusts and swung the rifle at the injured leader’s leg. The first strike buckled Leonidas’ knee. He fell to the ground but continued to frantically attack the air around him, hoping that the knife would strike some part of his target.
Luck was not on his side. Franklin turned and struck Leonidas’ other knee, sending him to the ground. If Leonidas felt pain he didn’t show it; he fought with the same ferocity he’d had when he possessed his vision and two good legs.
Leonidas attempted to stand but his knee bent in, a bone piercing the skin. Franklin took the opportunity he’d been given, repeatedly driving the butt of his rifle into both of Leonidas’ arms, breaking them like he had the legs and causing Leonidas to drop the knife.
Franklin picked up the blade and straddled Leonidas. Grasping Leonidas by the hair, Franklin dragged the knife across his throat. Then he plunged the knife into Leonidas’ solar plexus so deep and with such force that his hand entered the open wound. Leonidas mouth worked soundlessly as Franklin pulled his hand, still gripping the wet knife, out of the wound. With the precision of a butcher, Franklin angled the knife toward Leonidas’ pelvis and slid it downward, slicing him open from solar plexus to waist line.
The body of the fallen infected leader lay in the middle of the road. Franklin stood up, his legs braced aggressively, weapon in hand. He turned slowly, eyeing each member of the surrounding group. As his gaze slid over them, each infected looked toward the ground.
Franklin’s chest was bleeding and the skin hanging from his wounded cheek flapped with each exhalation of breath, like the loose fins of a squid’s mantle. Franklin seemed not to notice his wounds as he ripped what was left of his shirt from his body. The knife wound from the fight had opened up a band of fat that crossed his body. Even from a distance Sam could see the yellowish fat cells.
Pudgy Franklin thrust his hands into the open gut of the former leader. Hands dripping blood, he placed a single hand print on his own chest and grabbed the nearest infected by the throat and, before the man had a chance to react, pressed a single bloody hand to the man’s chest and back.
There was a drainage ditch next to the side of the road, filled to the brim with stagnant rainwater. The rest of the infected threw themselves into the dirty water, furiously rubbing dried hand prints from their bodies, erasing the mark of their former leader.
When they were finished they crowded close to Franklin, like hyenas over a fresh kill, dipping their hands in the blood of their fallen leader and pressing it to their chests and backs, marking themselves as Franklin’s followers.
#
From their perch of relative safety, Sam and Matt continued to watch the horror show unfold. They couldn’t run out of the fear of being seen; they couldn’t stay because Franklin knew where they were.
“We can fight,” Matt said finally. They hadn’t spoken for minutes, each silently weighing the impending action.
Sam grimaced. “There are nearly a hundred of them and they’re right outside our door. The second a shot goes off they’re going to swarm us.”
“Franklin knows we’re here,” Matt said quietly. “They’re going to swarm the house anyway. At least we have a plan.”
“I know but I was hoping to avoid fighting. I wanted them to keep going on their way.”
On cue, Franklin turned toward the house. His gaze moved to the second story, finding the window of the room they were in. Picking up on their new leader’s body language, the other infected began to fan out, surrounding the house.
Matt lifted his rifle to his shoulder and lined up the sights on Franklin through a partial opening at the side of the Venetian blinds. “I could take him out right now. He’s close enough that if the first shot didn’t get him, my follow-ups would.”
“Once the infected break the windows and get in we’re done. And they will break the windows—you saw what happened when I shot their leader on the first trip. They went wild. Let’s get upstairs, hopefully they won’t notice the attic.”
On the street below them, Franklin threw his head back and screamed. The sound of glass breaking echoed through the house as the infected attacked. Footsteps pounded through the house, coming closer to the stairs. Sam ran to the attic ladder and Matt followed, lifting the wooden ladder as he went up so they wouldn’t be seen by Franklin’s marked followers.
They would make a stand here.
The marked moved through the house faster than either of them had anticipated and must have seen the attic door close because soon hands were pawing at the edges of the door, attempting to pull it down.
Matt’s grip on the attic door slipped, overpowered by the many infected trying to pull it open. Sam fired at the infected below. Splinters exploded and an infected’s head burst like a bowl of thrown soup.
The sound of guns going off in the attic should have been deafening, even painful, but the intensity of the situation made them both oblivious to the sound of the firearms discharging. Even the thought of Sam’s family was absent, replaced by the singular need to survive. Matt and Sam backed up to the corner o
f the attic and continued sending a steady stream of lead at the attic door as the infected were funneled into the entryway single-file.
“We’re gonna run out,” Sam yelled over the bark of gunfire.
“Cocktails!” Matt yelled back, without slowing his shooting.
They had backed their way into the far corner where the ceiling began to slant. Here, the plywood floor ended and tufts of pink fiberglass insulation poked up like cotton candy. Since Matt’s gun could shoot rapidly without needing to be reloaded as frequently, Sam grabbed the Molotov cocktails.
A few clicks of the grill lighter and the end was lit. The bottle arced through the air, striking one of the marked in the forearm and dropping to the floor of the hallway below. Sam expected a fiery explosion, but he only saw the same relentless onslaught of the infected. Thank God for the ladder, Sam thought. It was the only thing keeping the flow manageable.
Sam lit the second Molotov cocktail and Matt walked forward with him. This time, instead of throwing the bottle from a distance, Sam got close to the opening as Matt shot next to him. Once he reached the edge of the door, Sam could see the traffic jam of infected below and, through the tangle of limbs, the still-burning wick of the first cocktail.
Sam hurled the cocktail through the hole with all of his might. The bottle exploded across the head of a bald infected man, who began to thrash. In his panic, the bald man stomped on the first Molotov cocktail, sending a second wave of liquid fire across the floor. Smoke began to collect at the ceiling of the attic, the open door acting like a chimney. Matt and Sam continued to fire as they retreated, trying not to inhale the smoke as they fell back to the corner of the attic.
Sam pushed his way back to where the plywood floor ended and brought his foot down hard on the fiberglass insulation and underlying dry wall. The ceiling gave way easily, Sam grabbed the joists as he lowered himself into the room below. Large chunks of ceiling littered the floor of the room below and pieces still hung from the ceiling. The room’s door, which Matt had locked earlier when they’d drawn out this plan, was still closed. The infected group had gone straight to the attic without busting down other doors. Already Sam could hear the stomp of feet in the attic above; it would be a matter of seconds before the infected figured out where they'd gone. It was a small window in which to escape, but a window nonetheless.
The room they’d dropped into had been a guest bedroom: it had that clean, unlived-in look. A set of large towels were folded neatly on a mahogany dresser and the giant four-poster bed was neatly made and ready for a guest. Tied to one of the wooden posts on the bed was the remainder of the sheet Sam had used for the Molotov cocktails. Now it was knotted into a makeshift rope along with other bed linens.
Matt glanced out the window. “Nobody down there.”
“Good. They must’ve packed themselves into the house trying to get us.”
Matt opened the window and threw the end of the sheet outside.
Sam lit the fuse of their third Molotov cocktail and broke it against the hardwood floor in front of the door. The gas erupted into a small mushroom cloud of heavy black smoke, burning the floor and wall. The sound alerted any infected that weren’t yet in the attic to their location, and the mob began throwing themselves against the door. Luckily the door opened into the hallway or it would have broken on the first hit.
Matt climbed through the window, dangling a few feet before he dropped to the lawn below. Sam tossed down his shotgun, the sledgehammer he’d taken from the shed, the towels from dresser and the three remaining Molotov cocktails to Matt. As he climbed through the window, infected began dropping through the hole in the ceiling. Sam released the end of the rope and rolled as he hit the ground to help absorb the impact.
They’d been sure to douse the garage floor and the entire first level of the house with gasoline. Now, Sam smashed the garage window with the handle of his sledgehammer and threw a lit Molotov cocktail inside. Their homemade fire bomb exploded over the gasoline vapors, instantly igniting the garage and following the trail of spilled gas into the main house. Matt threw two more at the base of the house for good measure.
They heard a loud bang as the door to the guest room gave way, followed by screams as the infected caught fire. It was the first time Sam had seen them respond to pain. In moments Franklin and his remaining followers would realize Sam and Matt had gone through the open upstairs window. Sam and Matt used those precious few seconds to run toward the woods, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the burning inferno of the house.
Sam hazarded one last glance over his shoulder as they ran. The front of the house was burning too; the infected had knocked over the bowls of gasoline when they entered, dousing their legs and the front door with gas.
The plan had worked. The house had gone up in flames like a torch.
Their retreat to the tree line was only a temporary respite, however. As burning infected dropped from the second story, it became clear that they were not fully incapacitated. Some of the marked, the ones who’d been more thoroughly dressed, were literal balls of fire. Other infected were almost entirely fire free. Although some of the marked limped from the fall, they moved unequivocally in the direction Sam and Matt had retreated.
It was integral that no infected be able to follow them. As more infected rained from the second story window, Sam leaned his shotgun against a tree and hefted the sledgehammer: no need to waste ammunition.
He turned to Matt. “Looks like some are going to cause us a problem. Got me covered?”
Matt nodded, shouldered his weapon and sent a round through the closest and most able infected. The round went through the infected’s chest and she dropped to the ground. Some of the infected tried to rush toward them. Matt stood to the side, shooting rounds through the more able-bodied infected.
Sam moved from the tree line closer to the house. It was rough dirty work that didn’t lend itself to the faint of heart but it was his survival at stake and he would do what was necessary. If they allowed any room for quarter today none would be given to them tomorrow.
Sam dispatched nearly a dozen wounded infected that fell from the window as fire engulfed the room. Soon the house was such a hot blaze that Sam and Matt were forced to step back.
No more infected issued forth. Their job was done.
#
Conspiracy theories were things Sam had always found amusing but never allowed himself to believe. He’d read about people who believed the world was controlled by a single group: the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, Skull and Bones, the Bilderbergers. Take your pick. Supposedly these organizations had vast pools of wealth and used these resources to manipulate world events. But it was glaringly clear to Sam, in light of recent events, that there was no plan. No vast network of resources. No one controlling what happened. Sam found the lack of a conspiracy to be infinitely more terrifying than the idea of a nefarious shadow government.
Chief Norris had told him that every major city in North America and Europe had been hit. Simultaneously. The coordination seemed to indicate a master plan but if there was someone—or some group—sitting in a bunker with plans to take over the burning wreckage of humanity, he wished them luck. Such a thing seemed impossible from where he was standing.
At this point, there were probably hundreds of millions of infected in the United States alone and this was a country with a strong infrastructure, where communication happened, or used to happen, with the click of a button. Goods could travel through America’s vast transportation network in days—or hours by plane. If you forgot to send your mother a birthday card, it could be overnighted from 3,000 miles away so it reached her on time.
If America was this bad off, Sam could only imagine what it would be like in other countries that had had less to begin with. Then again, maybe that would work in their favor. Isolated villages might be easier to defend, after all.
Still, he didn’t think it would take long before the infection engulfed the worl
d. There were no natural borders separating the U.S. and Mexico, for instance. Or Mexico from the rest of Central America.
Things had changed since the infection first started. He’d changed. The first time Sam had seen the infected—when Jack had shot and killed two of them on his front lawn—Sam had been horrified and demanded they call the police. Today he’d nearly strangled a man who was still in his right mind and then burned down a house with close to a hundred people inside.
The change in “acceptable” behavior had been surprisingly quick, but Sam was okay with—even proud—of his actions. Granted, he wished the infection hadn’t happened, but those were thoughts he confined to the minutes just before he fell asleep. The infection was a fact of life and to survive it, he needed to be brutal. To fight monsters he’d become one himself. The need for survival had ripped the veneer of civility clean off him.
He hoped Jill and Grant were still alive. But even if they weren’t, he’d still try to survive. Jill would want him to do that, to live as well as he could until death came calling.
He looked from the burning house at Matt. “I think we’re done here.”
Matt turned wordlessly and started toward the road. If the house was not already a beacon for the infected it soon would be. Every infected man, woman, and child in the area would be drawn to the bright light when darkness fell and Sam and Matt knew they couldn’t fight another wave of infected. Both of them were still coughing and their snot was black from being stuck inside the burning attic. Sam tried to stifle his urge to cough but it was no use: the exposure to the smoke had been too much and his need to expel the smoky residue was too great.
They hugged the tree line as they walked down the road, hoping to avoid being silhouetted for too long. With no escape route planned and no rescue likely, they would have to make their own luck.
The flames from the house, which had been their saving grace, were now their biggest problem. As dusk began to set, the house burned brightly and the wind carried the smoke inland. It was like a tractor beam to any infected who could see or smell it, letting them know where the survivors were.
